


Shehecheyanu Moment

by xslytherclawx



Series: purimgifts 2019 [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Jewish Character, Jewish Lily Evans Potter, Jewish Remus Lupin, Shabbat | Sabbath | Sabt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-10-09 07:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17402696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xslytherclawx/pseuds/xslytherclawx
Summary: It's Remus's first Shabbat at Hogwarts





	Shehecheyanu Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LaDonnaErrante](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaDonnaErrante/gifts).



> Chag Purim sameach, LaDonnaErrante!  
> You said you loved Jewish Remus, and Jewish characters doing Jewish things, so I tried to deliver with this!  
> My rabbi always talks about how we need to be better at recognizing what she calls "shehecheyanu moments", and I thought I'd start this off with a sweet fluffy friendship fic.

The thing was, Remus really didn’t grow up all that observant. He didn’t even know if other Jewish wizards _existed._ Sure, his (Muggle) mother was Jewish – but she wasn’t very observant, either. When he was younger – _Before_ – he’d go with her to services some Shabbatot, but he really couldn’t remember it. Even _After,_ when the High Holy Days didn’t fall near a full moon, he’d go with her then. It was a long drive to Cardiff, no matter where they lived at the moment.

But the High Holy Days were one thing (and even then not every year). He didn’t keep kosher, he didn’t observe Shabbat, and he really didn’t even know how to read Hebrew.

It was all fine by him, really; he had bigger things to worry about, after all, and while his new roommates seemed friendly enough, he didn’t want to go out and _tell them_ that he was a werewolf. They’d never speak to him again.

He tucked himself into a quiet corner of the common room Friday evening, after he’d waived his friends on upstairs because he was so close to finishing his book, he could taste it.

He glanced up when he saw a girl approaching him – she was a first year, like he was. But then she walked right past him to the table, and pulled two candlesticks out of her bag. She set two candles in them, and glanced over at him. He turned his attention back to his book.

He heard her say, “Incendio,” but the candles didn’t light.

The girl cursed under her breath.

“Are you sure you’ve got the right wand movement?” Remus asked, and he immediately regretted it. The girl turned to him, fixing her startling green gaze on him.

“I’ve never done it before, but I haven’t got any matches, or a lighter, and it’s Shabbat – are we even allowed to _use_ magic to light the candles? Or on Shabbat?”

That was all it took for Remus to mark his page in his book and stand up. He _wasn’t_ the only Jewish student at Hogwarts! “My mum’s a Muggle, so I dunno, but – my dad uses Incendio to light the Floo for work every morning,” he said. “I’m Remus.”

“Lily,” the girl said. “Are you Jewish, too?”

Remus nodded. “Yeah. Dad’s – not, but – my mum and me, yeah, we are.”

“I’m a Muggleborn,” Lily said. “I really don’t know anything about how to apply halacha to magic.”

Remus didn’t really know much about halacha – not beyond the basics – and _nothing_ about how it applied to magic. “Well,” he said. “We can start with Incendio?”

“Why don’t you light them?” Lily asked. “And then we can say the blessings together.”

So he did. He’d never cast Incendio before, and was mildly surprised when it worked. Lily smiled. “Oh, good. So, er – together, then?”

Remus nodded. Together, they recited the blessing: “Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav, v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Shabbat.”

Lily looked at him. “I think we should say a shehecheyanu, too. Since it’s our first time celebrating Shabbat together, _and_ our first time at Hogwarts.”

It was Remus’s first time in years, but he didn't say that. “All right,” he said.

He didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t sure he remembered the words, but Lily led them anyway.

_Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, shehecheyanu, v'kiy'manu, v'higiyanu laz'man hazeh._

They spent the next hour talking about their upbringings (Remus admitted that he and his mother weren’t very observant; Lily said that her mother was on her shul’s board of directors), how Hogwarts differed from their expectations, their classmates, and life in general.

It was nice, Remus thought, to not be alone if only in this aspect. He might be the only werewolf at Hogwarts, but at least he definitely wasn’t the only Jew.

**Author's Note:**

> In the Prisoner of Azkaban film, Remus says that Lily was there for him at a time when he was alone, and I've always liked the idea of them being friends before she ever dates James, so: first year Remus and Lily meeting properly and becoming friends.


End file.
